Saturday, August 22, 2015

Guest Post: Being A Better Dad (By Jona)

Dad and I
switched bodies last week. It was kind of unexpected, to be honest. At seven
years old, I was still having a bedwetting problem. My dad thought that
punishment would resolve the problem, so every time I had wetted the bed during
the night, he made me clean up the mess I made and gave me chores to do around
the house all day. It made me quite mad, because it was not as if deliberately
peed in my bed. We had seen a doctor and she also told us that punishing was
not a solution. Unfortunately, my dad didn't want to believe it. One morning,
when I had once again had a nighttime accident, I feared my dad was going to
shout at me again. I wished my dad could experience how humiliating it actually
was to discover one's wet bed in the morning and to be forced to clean it up
all by oneself. Suddenly, I blacked out for a couple of seconds, and when I
came to, I was lying in a bed and I was in my dad's body. I heard footsteps and
the door to the bedroom was slowly being opened. There I was, or at least there
was my body, cautiously calling out. "Daddy?" I heard my young voice
say. "I've had an accident again." I got up and went to his bedroom.
I scolded him for wetting the bed and made him clean everything up. The kid was
obviously afraid and immediately did as I asked. I was surprised I was so harsh
on the former me. It wasn't my intention, but the body just somehow took over.
On the other hand, it was good my father experienced how degrading the whole
situation was and how terrified he made me feel.

I figured
it was dad who was in my body, but he never said a thing. I guessed he also had
to be emotionally influenced by my body and somehow it was refraining him from making
any commentary about the swap. And I know he must have had memories from before
the switch, because I had them too. Although, they became less and less
prominent and they were replaced by new memories. I acquired driving skills and
suddenly I knew how to do my dad's job. Over the course of the days, I settled
more and more into the role of the dad. I still remembered I had been the son,
but that memory was more or less all that was left. I guessed there was no way
back. The swap must have happened for a reason, and I supposed it happened so I
could prove I was better at being a dad than he was. So I started to treat the
kid better. I listened to his problems, we talked about the bedwetting
situation. I was still a strict dad, but I wasn't going to punish him for
something he had no control over. Who knows, if I did punish him unjustly, the
mysterious powers that enabled the switch might want to reverse it. And I was
definitely not going back to my former life. I loved being a dad for my son.